All you have to do is download the plugin, and refresh your Facebook page. Then hit ctrl+alt+a while on Facebook again; a dialogue box will appear which allows you to upload an image with an encoded message. Follow the instructions and upload to your friends wall or any Facebook album.

News.com.au's Privacy Policy includes important information about our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information (including to provide you with targeted content and advertising based on your online activities). It explains that if you do not provide us with information we have requested from you, we may not be able to provide you with the goods and services you require. It also explains how you can access or seek correction of your personal information, how you can complain about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles and how we will deal with a complaint of that nature.

Comments on this story

Scott of Brisbane Posted at 2:25 PM April 12, 2013

Steganography is the security risk???? You guys are so naive. The only security risk is to the citizens privacy, which clearly the Governments (AFP) and FaceBook have worked together to minimise. Owen-Campbell Moore is giving FaceBook users something they should aready have. Privacy.

Comment 1 of 36

Bored Posted at 2:27 PM April 12, 2013

The only thing news worthy about this is that there are people who think organised criminals are not already routinely using these kinds of techniques to exchange information securely. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book.

Comment 2 of 36

Sam Posted at 3:30 PM April 12, 2013

New??? best you use google to find out when this technology was first done.. great to see once again you idiots just writing crap articles without any research.. he DID NOT create it, he only created the app, not the technology.. get your facts right!

Comment 3 of 36

andrew of sydney Posted at 3:39 PM April 12, 2013

"This technology creates a brand new security threat"
ahahahahahaha

Comment 4 of 36

clunge Posted at 3:45 PM April 12, 2013

"This technology creates a brand new security threat, as criminals or terror organisations could potentially use the app to share plans."
No. Anyone who wants to share actual illegal or secret plans has countless ways to do it which are far more secure and anonymous than this. Terrorists do not use Facebook to share their 'terrorist plans'. Seriously.

Comment 5 of 36

TB of NSW Posted at 3:50 PM April 12, 2013

WHY, WHY WHY do or would you need this all this stupidty in your life.....technology is getting way out of hand....

Comment 6 of 36

Corza Posted at 3:51 PM April 12, 2013

@Scott of Brisbane, Couldn't have said it any better!
That is the reason I deleted my FB account last year. Privacy is a thing of the past so I'm going to hold on to what little privacy I still have left.

Comment 7 of 36

EM of Melbourne Posted at 3:57 PM April 12, 2013

LOL I love it when technology illiterate people write technology articles...
Nothing new here, move along.

Comment 8 of 36

John Posted at 4:07 PM April 12, 2013

This isn't new, I was using software that did the exact same thing over 10 years ago. As Scott said, it's called stenography and it's been around for decades
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography#Digital
What's next? "Teenagers use new ROT13 cipher to encode secret text messages."

Comment 9 of 36

Grant of Adelaide Posted at 4:08 PM April 12, 2013

Steganography is nothing new. For those in the know, digital steganography has been around since the 90's

Comment 10 of 36

MartinX Posted at 4:13 PM April 12, 2013

Steganography has been around for ages. This just makes it available to the point-n-click idiots.

This is VERY old tech. I used to play around with this stuff in primary school.

Comment 13 of 36

Yoda Posted at 4:40 PM April 12, 2013

Someone else who wants access to your personal data.....

Comment 14 of 36

lol facebook Posted at 5:04 PM April 12, 2013

With all the bullying issues on facebook already, you can see this making the headlines sooner rather than later.
It's like the perfect avenue to insert an in joke at someones expense and then to have them advertise it to the world.

Comment 15 of 36

Jess S of Syd Posted at 5:05 PM April 12, 2013

Me and my friends have been doing this a different way for years now.

Comment 16 of 36

Steve of Brisbane Posted at 5:07 PM April 12, 2013

This technology has been around for decades. Adobe had in it early releases of Photoshop to copyright photos.

Comment 17 of 36

David of Adelaide Posted at 5:17 PM April 12, 2013

@Scott - so true. I remember hearing a report around 5 years ago that random samples of ebay pictures found close to 10% of all images uploaded had steganographic content.

Comment 18 of 36

Capt. Obvious Posted at 5:25 PM April 12, 2013

just send then a private message... how stupid are some people

Comment 19 of 36

davidg of Australia Posted at 5:35 PM April 12, 2013

This has been around for years.

Comment 20 of 36

Jon Posted at 5:52 PM April 12, 2013

A Mexican Drug Lord ws using Hello Kitty pics to send encoded messages not that long ago, this is just a citizen level usage of the same tech. I even read the article about the drug lord on news.com.au, mybe two or three years back? And Scott, I agree fully with you BTW, this is just people taking back the privacy that's been stolen by business and governments over the last twenty years. What's the old Star Wars thing? "The more you tighten your fist the more star systems will slip between your fingers..."?

Comment 21 of 36

drew powers of perth Posted at 6:02 PM April 12, 2013

lol so secret messages embedded in pictures could be hiding criminal plans, but private text messages in facebook aren't secret... implication is that authorities are already reading our personal communications??

Comment 22 of 36

jj of WA Posted at 6:46 PM April 12, 2013

ahahah this has been around ever since digital images have been around.. Luddites..

Comment 23 of 36

Daveo of Australia Posted at 6:48 PM April 12, 2013

This is nothing new at all, been in use for about a decade or more in the intelligence field. the encryption adopted would be easily broken by government agencies, ever wondered why there are import/export restrictions on software that allows better than standard encryption?

Comment 24 of 36

Greg of Sydney Posted at 6:57 PM April 12, 2013

The two images, of a man holding a dog, is actually 1 image, so....yeah, whatever.

Comment 25 of 36

Ian of Erskineville Posted at 7:52 PM April 12, 2013

this technology is old as the hills - nothing new, embedding additional information in an image or even other data has been around and used for years it is called Steganography - all you have is a new app, which is one of hundreds, that does this

Comment 26 of 36

Cly Posted at 8:26 PM April 12, 2013

'The only thing news worthy about this is that there are people who think organised criminals are not already routinely using these kinds of techniques to exchange information securely. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book.'
Couldn't have said it better myself, all they've done is let millions of regular joes know of it. Good job media!

Comment 27 of 36

Adam of Perth, WA Posted at 8:34 PM April 12, 2013

harldy newsworthy. and certainly not a NEW security threat for criminals, terrorists, etc. Since no official media-release from the AFP - they probably think little of it too. Back in the old days, people had mIRC with fish/blowfish - an encryption script - such that they could chat on public channels, but in 'secret code' ... not much has changed, just different social platform ... and hiding messages in photos is old hat, been around for decades.

Comment 28 of 36

Matt Posted at 8:36 PM April 12, 2013

Steganography has been around for years. Not sure what the fuss is here. I've personally used it for years for saving certain things.

Comment 29 of 36

Lex of Sydney Posted at 9:17 PM April 12, 2013

This was in the movie Along Came a Spider' which came out over ten years ago... and it was being used by primary school kids!

Comment 30 of 36

Jase of Melb Posted at 9:21 PM April 12, 2013

Are you serious? That's a ridiculous attempt at trying to create a fear based news item.

Comment 31 of 36

pedr davis of NSW, Australia Posted at 9:39 PM April 12, 2013

I remember a story about longer than 4 digit bank passwords not neing allowed until the spoooks had sufficient pro cessing power to crack 6 digit ones. Apocryphal, but that level of snooping wouldn't surprise me.
Pity they don't check certain government officials and wannabes from time to time ...
Could save the state on SNW a hundred million, and certain unions a few million as well.

Comment 32 of 36

Ryan of Newman Posted at 9:48 PM April 12, 2013

What's wrong with that? What is wrong with privacy and secrecy? The government is allowed to do it and we pay them for some idiotic reason. Why should people have to be public about everything?
Kids today probably don't even know about lemon juice as invisible ink!
Thanks news.com.au for sharing this cool app!

Comment 33 of 36

LUKE of LARGS Posted at 10:18 PM April 12, 2013

What the... People communicating in PRIVATE?
HOW DARE THEY!!

Comment 34 of 36

Colin Posted at 10:27 PM April 12, 2013

Digital Steganography has been around since the mid 80's. I'm sure there are hundreds of programs on the internet that would allow any 7 year old to do this. And I'm equally sure that the relevant law departments have an easy, automatic, way to detect images with possible encoded information. Just like Google has bots that crawl the web collecting information, I'm sure there are bots that examine images.

Comment 35 of 36

Pete_gc of Queensland. Posted at 8:27 AM April 13, 2013

You have to send a password to the other person? Wouldn't it just save time to tell them the message instead?
How retarded are these people's brains getting. Ooh, lets spend thousands of hours inventing something that takes longer to retrieve than just picking up the phone and saying it.

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